


The Wretched

by ikoliholic



Category: Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Blood Kink, Explicit Sexual Content, Kinda, Loki Feels, M/M, Ragnarok, Thor Feels, Warning: Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-09-24 05:16:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9704840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikoliholic/pseuds/ikoliholic
Summary: Stripped of everything - including his hope, a weary Thor finds himself trapped in worlds unknown for endless battle. He is not prepared nor willing, but perhaps there will be no choice.





	1. Hopeless

**Author's Note:**

> So I’ve got a bunch of these “WHAT THE HELL DO I WANT TO HAPPEN IN THIS DARN FILM????” fics that are half-written. Here's one of my many (less likely) ideas. Enjoy x
> 
> EDIT: I started this story before the Ragnarok trailer release, so it probably fits in *even less* with actual plot, but hey ho. All Thorki and multi-Realm adventuring is good, right?

Thor grows angrier by the minute trapped in such a hideous place. His muscles and bones ache and his heart has never felt so heavy. Stripped of Mjolnir with shocking ease by powers he does not yet know, he’d been no match for Hela, whom upon his return from Midgard had been sat upon the throne. He wishes he’d returned much sooner, or never left at all. Where the All-Father is remains a mystery — if he lives still.

Exactly _where_ Thor is remains a mystery, but the air feels different, off-world. He’d awoken shackled and had not been spoken to since. The solitary cell shows blood and decay from its likely many previous captives, none of whom appear to have been treated in kind either, judging by the smell. Thor himself manages better than most, given his godly nature and strong form, though that makes his fellow prisoners no less noble in his eyes.

An assortment of pitiful creatures they are, though. Some will fight better than others. He dreads the thought of being thrown into the arena with any of them, in fact, because he will likely give up his life rather than kill an innocent prisoner.

But he need not worry. Instead, the captives are chosen at random to face a beastlier opponent. Monsters from across the Realms and universes Thor could not have imagined.

Monsters.

He thinks back to his brother’s cold, expressionless face while stood beside the Goddess of Death as she abused the throne of Asgard; like a sycophant, a lapdog. How Loki had done _nothing_ to stop the horrors that Hela was inflicting upon their home. How he’d done nothing when Thor was beaten to the ground by that hideous _beast_ , done nothing when Thor was clutching desperately onto life after a thousand clone hammers swung for him and managed to extricate Mjolnir from his bloodied grip.

Loki _should_ have died with honour on Svartelheim that day, Thor bitterly thinks.

Yes, Thor is filled with a rage he has not before endured. It frightens him that he will not be able to control it. He’s been trapped here what must only be a few weeks, but already it feels like a hundred lifetimes. Hope is running dry.

He is tortured daily. They all are. Stripped naked, beaten, wounded with weapons, some sharp and some blunt. Some magic, some sickening. He'd resisted of course, but they realised his strength and amended the torture accordingly. So he has shut down his strength for now, bears what he can without making it worse, else he will never have strength enough to escape.

Escape seems a fanciful dream at this time, though. Even if he were to escape, where exactly would he _go_? This place is certainly nowhere belonging to the Realms, that much is clear; whisperings he’s heard tell that this place is owned by the Grandmaster. A myth. An Elder, capable of travelling through the dimensions. If this is true, then he has millennia on even Thor.

And Thor has no Mjolnir.

He is chosen.

Outside of the cell, the place is all crisp white and sleek lines. Nothing like Asgard or Midgard or anywhere else known. The surrounding technology remains hidden, but Thor can feel the electromagnetism bristling around, alien to him somehow and terrifying in its power. His captor has obviously taken a great deal of care in this place. Still though, the _gladiators_ here are not willing, and their opponents are more often than not formidable.

Thor’s hand longs for Mjolnir. Dragged through another long maze of a corridor, his head hangs low and silent as soon as a new door flies open, a room filled with tormentors.

Screaming and uproar, uncontrolled:

_“Look at this one — this one looks special.”_

_“Yes — a delicious death and inglorious battle!”_

_“I will rip limb from limb and sup on—”_

“SILENCE.”

Only then does Thor look up.

The Grandmaster’s eyes glint with purple, white and the promise of pain. His flesh is a pallid blue and his hair silver. In a way, he looks nothing more than an ageing old man, but Thor knows they are often the most powerful of all.

Gently, The Grandmaster raises a hand and a shield covers them both, blocking view from all those previously interested. He loiters in front of the glass case in which Thor is now confined. The Grandmaster does not believe Thor is who he says he is, but the blonde warrior is physically an extra special find nonetheless.

“So then. The one who calls himself _Thor_.” He turns on his heel and assesses with a menacing glare. “I hope you fight as boastful as your name claims you to be.”

Thor says nothing in reply, save for returning a menacing glare. The Grandmaster chuckles lowly. “Yes, yes. _Quite the warrior_. Strong and silent. Do you like my grounds? This arena alone took me a hundred years to create. A hundred more to perfect. Lots of death involved. Some glorious, some… _not_ so.”

Thor’s face wretches with contempt.

“Still silent, no? Don’t like talking to your new master?”

“You are not my master.” Loud and clear, Thor’s voice thunders. “Nor would you ever be.”

“Oh _really_.” The Grandmaster barks a merry little laugh, then his eyes glaze ruby red. “Now we’re _talking_. So then, if _I’m_ not your master — despite the fact I currently have you trapped in a glass case, whom might I ask would that be, exactly? Family, perhaps?”

“I answer to none.” Thor thinks of Asgard’s betrayal, of Midgard’s vulnerability. “Not anymore.”

“That’s an interesting statement, _Thor_ , it really is.”

“How so?” Thor bites.

The Grandmaster smirks. His eyes settle to misty white. “You will see soon enough.”

“I demand to know of what you speak—”

“Ah, but look at you, so-called _prince_. You are in no position to bargain. After all, what is the Mighty Thor without his hammery…thingy?”

The insult cuts Thor deep into silence.

“ _So sad_.” The Grandmaster shakes his head in mock-pity. “But I do love the odd delusion, so I will play along in this particular game just for now.” He closes his eyes and raises his hands. Their surroundings change completely — the glass encasing Thor expands to create a transparent cell adorned with handsome objects. The shackles disappear. The Grandmaster smirks.

“Fit for a king with no master!”

Thor lunges for him, but finds himself attacking thin air. When Thor looks up, he sees a projection of the Elder on the other side of the pane.

“But, if you are who you _claim_ to be, then your opponent today may subjugate you yet.”

“Do not attempt to riddle me, foul one.”

“No riddles, just _games_. We did have an ugly green monster for you to contend with in your first battle, but given our latest inpatient, that can wait for a later time.” The Grandmaster closes his eyes and suddenly Thor feels the air being extracted from his lungs. He grabs for his own throat, but there’s nothing to fight with. “If we can contain him long enough, that is. He’s going to tear your _godly_ flesh into little golden scraps. Delightful.”

The Grandmaster disappears. Thor falls to the ground and heaves for breath. Alone and without Mjolnir, there is no hope against power so great.

For the first time in his life, he is truly terrified.


	2. Battle

Thor does not sleep nor use any of the cell’s offerings. Not a morsel from the platter of Asgardian food and drink; not even the chainmail and helmet hanging from the wall.

He does, however, cast a quick glance in the full-length mirror when his eye catches it, and finds himself horrified at the reflection.

He bears clearly the sign of torture through scars and scabs, dirt and dried blood across golden flesh that already appears to be losing some of its glow. His hair is knotted with dried blood and sweat, clinging to his face and neck in a grimy halo. Or noose.

Hours pass in a painful, slow creep, but eventually he finds himself dragged to the amphitheatre, which is incredibly impressive. Bigger than any kind of battle arena Thor has ever witnessed, even on Asgard. The crowd roars in anticipation— deafening, confusing and disorienting.

_“Mmm, a pretty one!”_

_“I hope he’s eaten and beaten!”_

_“A red-bleeder, yes yes y—”_

“People,” The Grandmaster’s voice booms through the arena and the crowd falls silent. “My people. Today we have a special entrant to our gladiatorial games. He claims to be a god!” The crowd cheers. “Shall we give him a fitting warm-up?”

Shackled and thrown to the dirt, Thor does not bother to look up and soak in the applause. He ignores the Grandmaster’s rousing speech. Only when he senses the opponent does he stand.

The shackles bounding Thor’s wrists disappear. The monster is bright blue with thin, luminous yellow branding all over its muscled form. It looks mutated — perhaps once he was a man. Now, he has four arms and a spiked tail and nothing but rage glazing a huge pair of eyes, bulging from a metal-muzzled face.

Thor grunts, picks himself from the floor after the first blow. He refuses to give in to his base urge of violence — that is until the creature has him half-dead in a matter of moments. He realises then that whether the creature was born evil or made evil, it matters not. Kill or be killed.

Blood pours from his nose. He touches it, smiles. Aims for the beast’s throat. Wins.

The next three opponents are a blur of technicoloured violence; bone-crunching, metal-bending and without honour.

By the fifth, he has long forgotten the Grandmaster’s riddle. He isn’t even thinking about Mjolnir anymore— only how he can tear limb from the squirming, pathetic pink creature beneath him. When he manages to prise flesh and bone from flesh and bone, he screams in both victory and horror when he realises that this may never end.

Kneeling now and drowning in clarity, he throws his prize to the ground and claws the dirt in desperation, still screaming, pleading with the Norns for a sign, for something.

_Anything_.

“Oh, oh, oh,” Grandmaster fans himself, clearly mocking. “A most vicious and _handsome_ warrior. Will he go far, this fake god? Dramatic he is. What do you think, my people?” The crowd jeers and whoops delightedly. “Time will tell. Are you ready for today’s penultimate and most exciting game thusly far?” Another wave of roars. “Good! Let us not delay and keep a _god_ waiting.”

Thor seethes, exhausted both physically and mentally while still somehow bloodlust wanders his veins, trickling, waiting.

“Next!” The Grandmaster’s voice echoes, then is drowned out by foot stamping and hand-clapping.

Thor’s opponent is thrown to the battle arena, cruelly dropped from a floating automaton above with neither care nor grace, and yet somehow still manages to resemble a level of dignity as he picks himself up off the floor. Thor cannot bear to look.

The opponent’s clothing and armour is torn almost beyond recognition, offering the sight of pale flesh beneath, also ribboned to ruin with dark scrapes and still-fresh lacerations: open wounds that may heal if his life is granted with enough time, but this is doubtful. His head is covered by a heavy, dark fabric, tied with a noose-like chain around the neck. Metal bands of thick iron and silverish amalgam wrap his wrists.

The roars of the crowds and Thor’s distance means that he cannot hear his opponent’s voice as he watches him struggle to remove the device to no avail. But then, he has no need for voice. He knows already that the prisoner is Loki.

He walks toward him.

Loki does not manage to remove the suffocating fabric, rather he accidentally tightens it, and his hands ball into fists taut at his side in resilience as Thor approaches.

The crowd still roars, but Thor’s ears hear only his brother now, deafening equal.

“I do not fear, Thanos!” Loki beseeches to nobody, the vessel and his captors having already long abandoned him. The sack must be dampened with some kind of magic, Thor thinks. “Do you hear me? You believe me a traitor and I am _not_. And I fear not your predators either!” He swings around on the spot, attempting menace that looks only pitiful. “I—” Loki hesitates, “I was a monster long before you ever lain hand upon me. And even in blindfold I will fight any beast before me ’til its final breath.” He takes a swing at Thor, narrowly misses. “Do not doubt!”

Though they can’t hear his muffled threats at all, the crowd quietens a little in giddy anticipation at the action to come.

But Thor does not attack, he restrains: holding Loki’s metal-clad wrists, he says one thing only. “Brother.”

It is a soft whisper, so soft that Loki almost doesn’t hear it at all, although the way he tenses and stills tells Thor that he heard clearly enough.

He rattles with the chains and reveals Loki’s face.

“ _Norns, what they’ve done to you_ ,” Thor digests the gory slash across his brother’s face, reaching all the way from temple to throat, among other bruises and wounds — some red, open and oozing. Still keeping one wrist restrained while noting his brother’s repressed seidr buzzing in the metal, Thor releases the other— traces just below the fresh wound with his fingertips.

Loki flinches beneath the touch, but he does not move. His mouth is smeared and flaked with a bluish blood that Thor supposes must be from his most recent attacker. His eyes, blackened and purple encasing fervent green, do not blink. They are filled with surprise.

Loki opens his mouth, taking breath for what kind of reply, Thor does not know, but then The Grandmaster’s voice booms throughout the arena. “What delight! Two apparent and aspiring Asagardians. Let us see if they can put their words into action. As always, if you do not fight to the death, you will both be killed. Commence.”

The pair do not pounce into action, despite the thunderous, deafening rumble of applause.

“I had a plan,” Loki says after a moment, lips tightened into an almost-snarl. “And you _ruined it_.” He swipes out of Thor’s grip and strikes a blow to the chest that manages to take Thor by complete surprise.

In different circumstances or a different time, perhaps Thor would have relished the fight; an opportunity to so publicly seek vengeance on his treacherous brother for all that he has done. Perhaps Thor’s bloodlust would have brimmed over the edge and he would have this time managed to end Loki’s life— but only if the battle were fair. Thor is weakened too, but Loki is barely even _clothed_. Dripping in blood already. Though displaying outward aggression, Thor knows that he has never seen his brother so vulnerable.

He wants to tell him thus, but the air has been knocked from his lungs. Loki is attacking with ferocity and finesse that should not be possible in such a state.

Loki always did surprise.

Thor’s defences soon become more vicious when his brother does not relent. They battle, rough, dirty— kick and hit and bite and grapple. And as is ever thus, Thor is always the strongest when it boils down to bare hands. He wants to tear each limb from its socket so that he might keep Loki from disappearing ever again.

“Is this really what you want?” he says, screaming at his brother below, their blood combined, smeared across flesh both. “To have me kill you to the cheers of thousands?”

Loki’s lips squirm with grimace and delight before he voices his one-word answer. His fingertips dig deep into Thor’s naked torso, capturing an open wound.

“ _Yes_.”

Confounded with rage, Thor’s hands tighten around Loki’s throat. Loki’s treacherous hands lay flat on the dirt, eyes wide with fear.

But the grip relents.

“I will not,” Thor cries into the space between their mouths and presses their foreheads together. “I _cannot_ do it, brother.”

How can he strangle that which he has seen vanish before his eyes twice already? That which has broken his heart the worlds over; the life of his brother— his impossible, treacherous, beautiful brother.

He lets go.

“Please.” Frantic and somehow measured, Loki pulls a concealed dagger from the sole of his boot. His heart contorts at Thor’s anguished expression as he hovers the blade near his own chest. “You must.”

The crowd’s loud rumblings turn into a unified gasp at the action, and Thor’s hands encircle colder, paler, blood-stained ones. “Why?”

“Trust me.” Loki’s gaze is steadfast, telling Thor a thousand ways in which he loves him. Suddenly, hope begins to trickle from Thor’s heart, surges through his veins and to his hands. It is enough to pierce blade into flesh, screaming sorry into the air, easily lost to the roars of the arena. Thor sees nothing except his brother’s face, fearful and smiling.

Then he feels it humming beneath his fingers. The blade. Forged with magic.

“Do not let go,” Loki rasps, panicked relief washing over his face. “Shield me.” As he falls back to the dirt, Thor follows, keeps his hands wrapped tight, protects from watching eyes.

Loki whispers incantations unheard. The dagger glows an icy metallic blue. Suddenly they are consumed by a suffocating astral current, shifted to another world in a prism-haze of colour that abruptly transposes to blackest black, then heavy green and grey. The air is misted, laced with the stench of death and fear.

Helheim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and suggestions always welcome! Also, I have a [Tumblr](https://ikoliholic.tumblr.com/), where you can feel free to say hey, if hey's your kinda thing.


	3. Helheim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, this chapter's a bit bloody. Consider yourself forewarned :)

_“My Lord, it is grave news. Hela. She…”_

_Loki, still guised as Odin, glares at the guard with much impatience, “What of her?”_

_“She has escaped her confinement—”_

_“Then we shall send a hundred men to the bifrost as precaution, but there is no need yet to panic our people.”_

_He already knew, of course. The guard’s face struggles a grimace._

_“With greatest respect, Allfather, that hardly seems enough to stop—”_

_“—You dare question me?”_

_Gungnir sears worries into Loki’s palm. He ignores it._

_When Hela reaches the Observatory a few hours later, Loki is waiting with a smile seared upon his own face._

_“Welcome to Asgard,” he says._

_As she laughs in reply, terror tendrils through his every fibre._

_“Is your Father not here to offer such warm greetings?”_

_“Odin is… indisposed.”_

_“Oh? And what of the better Odinson?”_

_“Thor frolics in Midgard,” Loki clicks his teeth. “Ever the fool.”_

_“Shame, I was hoping for a challenge. In the old tales, the golden child always was my favourite.”_

_“You shall have to settle for compliance instead.”_

_“You mean cowardice, of course.” She laughs again, mechanical and bitter. “But yes.”_

***

Loki is almost dead. _Loki_ _should be_ _dead_.

He lies on the floor at the abandoned gates of Helheim, blade still protruding from where Thor had driven it into his chest just moments ago. Heaving for breath, his eyes are wide and glassy and his knuckles are white where they grip Thor’s hands. The air around them is sulphurous, dangerous, and the stone ground is cold and damp from eternities of darkness.

His skin begins to mottle, as it did on Svartelheim.

“Brother,” he rasps, looking up at Thor. “Remove it.”

Thor finds his response coated with pain. “But you will bleed,” he says.

He cannot bring himself to say _you will die_.

“Perhaps,” Loki whispers now, jaw trembling. “Still, you must.”

Through gritted teeth, Thor pulls the dagger out. Loki seizes up, roars with pain as the blood pours. The blade still glimmers a metallic blue, and Thor notes its colour change to a gold-green in his hands. It burns bright hot and Thor feels magic thrum beneath his touch.

Loki, in his shaking voice, recites incantations Thor recognises from adolescence. Healing words. Thor joins along where he can, presses his hand firmly over the wound. The bleeding slows, but does not stop; Loki has lost so much already, it is difficult to see how he will survive.

“ _Stay with me_ ,” Thor demands, letting go of the blade to knot fingers into black, blood-drenched hair instead. The dagger is calling to Thor in a way Mjolnir once would have when abandoned as such; screaming magic at him through surrounding air. But his brother’s eyes are drifting shut, so magic unknown doesn’t matter. “Please, Loki.”

“I n—” Loki’s voice is naught but a murmur now, fragile. “—nuh—”

“What?” Thor whispers, “Brother, what is it you need? Tell me.”

Loki’s lips struggle to form the word, but he raises fingertips to show Thor.

Blood.

Without hesitation, Thor grabs the blade and slices deep the skin of his palm still pressing on Loki’s open wound. A layer of gold-green shimmers loose around them.

The dagger dances in his other hand now, pleased its purpose is better understood. Each time the flesh on his arm quickly attempts to heal itself, Thor reopens it. Again, again, again and he feels lightheaded, but oh it’s _working_ — Loki has started to un-mottle, heal, breathe.

He is all but ready to collapse atop Loki when green eyes finally flash open once more, bright and affecting. “That’s enough,” Loki heaves, greedy for air now, shoving at Thor. Still, Thor refuses to move his hand away. “It needs air,” Loki says roughly, “ _let go_.”

Despite the brusqueness, relief washes over Thor. “You know, brother,” he murmurs, collapsed flat out beside Loki in exhaustion while staring at the void above. “You could show more gratitude. I _have_ just bled myself to half-death for you.”

Loki considers this, dragging fingers across remnants of his brother’s blood smeared across his chest.

“Shut up, Thor,” he croaks in reply.

They both pass out.

***

Thor awakes, sits upright and worries they have been unconscious too long. Perhaps enemies already lurk silent in the shadows.

“What are we doing here?” His voice is a snappy rasp when it comes out.

“Hiding,” Loki replies as he clambers upwards, body equally pained, worry equal too. He thinks of the countless threats made from powers above. “In plain sight.”

Despite his own condition—despite the betrayal, the lies, despite _everything_ —upon sight of Loki, Thor cannot help but have great concern. He does not let it show. “Hiding from who, exactly?”

“Hela, Thanos, The Grandmaster,” Loki snaps back. “Is that enough, or should I name a few more wretches?”

Thor grits his teeth. “I do not care for your schemes and disguises.”

Standing up pole-straight, Loki smoothes his own blood-soaked hair down. “Even when they help you escape imprisonment from an Elder?” He cocks an eyebrow to match haughty stance. Thor scowls.

“Not when they land me into the darkest clutches of _Helheim_.”

“Look around you,” Loki spirals a semi-graceful circle while shrugging his shoulders. His palms gesture to the abandoned gates behind him. “Doesn’t exactly look foreboding to me, brother.”

It’s true, there’s not a soul in sight; the gate’s heavy iron chains lay broken on the ground. The whole realm appears empty: escaped or fled.

Thor shudders at either prospect. He looks up at Loki, eyes glowering and blue, with one word angry on his lips:

“ _How?_ ”

Loki’s response is a barking laugh at first, but his eyes soon fall closed, steeped in regret. _Quite easily._

“How?” Thor asks again, this time with the dagger in his hand, more desperate than threatening. Loki plucks it from him, examining it with caution.

“A truly special amalgam. The dagger was forged here many lifetimes ago. It will always make its way home—with both the killer and the killed, as long as they remain joined.”

“How would you know of such hideousness?”

“As rightful King of Asgard, I had—”

“You were not the rightful King!” Thor growls from his forlorn position. “And you _know_ that’s not what I mean.”

Loki grips the dagger with white knuckles—before sliding it back to the hiding place in his boot. He sighs, eyes falling closed once more. “I’ve seen things, Thor. Know things I shouldn’t. Done things I shouldn’t.” Green eyes strike open, wide. “Many regrets.”

Thor meets the gaze with equal vehemence. “Not good enough.”

“I know.” He crouches down to help pull his brother upright, physically griping as he does so. “But we must act quickly. You will have to put trust in me for now, brother.”

Thor considers this moment against past betrayal; considers the word brother, how much it both hurts and heals to hear it from Loki’s tongue. The image of Loki, defeated, blood oozing from countless wounds is branded in his mind.

Thor saved him; of course, and always he will.

But he is still angry.

“No!” He shouts, tears filling his eyes, “You will tell me _now,_ Loki. How did you survive Kurse? Why did you let Hela take Asgard? Where is father? And why—” he chokes, thinking of Mjolnir fractured to a thousand pieces, “ _how_ did you let them do that to me?”

“I had no choice,” Loki laments, answering all the questions at once. At least he has dignity enough to look regretful. “And _I had a plan._ ”

“Oh, the plan! I’d quite forgotten.” Thor lets go, thuds around in mock joy. “Tell me about this wonderful _plan_ of yours, brother.”

“Are you quite done?” Loki waits for Thor to stop thropping about. “Alone, I will admit: I am no match for Hela. She is terrifying. And _you_ were still preoccupied with your little mortals. I planned to keep on her good side and disappear the Infinity Stones when the time came.”

“Not steal them for yourself?” Thor raises an eyebrow.

“ _Of course not._ ” And in Loki’s eyes, Thor sees flashes of Chitauri; an Asgardian prison cell. Frigga. “You think I learn nothing from my mistakes?”

The more Loki tells Thor of Thanos and the gems, the more sick to his stomach Thor is. “And how did you end up in the vile arena?” He asks when Loki is finished.

“They wanted me to suffer.”

“ _Why_?”

“The day you returned to Asgard,” Loki pauses, attempting to veil emotion in his face. His eyes make a liar of him, as does his sardonic tone. “ _Well_. Hela said my sentiment toward you made me a traitor. Reminded Thanos of my shortcomings, shall we say.”

Still. The things Loki was privy to while Thor’s world was torn to pieces before his very eyes? It would not be forgotten. Nor would the look on his face in Svartelheim. So many _lies_ that it was impossible to keep track.

“I am meant to believe this? From the brother who has died three times, left our home in ruin, tried to r—”

“Which part sounds untrue, brother?” Loki interrupts, “My pathetic brotherly doting, or my shortcomings as treacherous villain?”

Thor will not answer. Instead, he grunts and clenches weakened hands into fists before exhaling deeply, calming himself as best he can.

“Brother, you have betrayed me so much,” he says, looking at Loki with pleading eyes. “Why should I trust you?”

 _Because I love you._ “Because there is no choice.” Loki offers his hand out. “Now shall we move on, or do you have further accusation you’d like to discuss?”

“Fine.” For now, Thor yields. He dare not ask, but assumes there is good reason his brother has brought them to the most wretched realm of all.

Loki offers a smile. “Follow me.”

For countless hours they stagger across ravine, dark enclave, even end up chest-deep in the midst of a foul and putrid stream—whose current sweeps Thor off his feet more than once—before Loki comes to a stop.

The surrounding area is precipitous, volcanic; the air thick with the rotten-egg stench of sulphur doubled with long-decayed flesh.

“Here,” Loki says as he starts to claw out a boulder from a steep rock formation. Thor joins him.

Eventually, their efforts reveal a small crack, barely noticeable in the rugged massif.

“What is this?” Thor asks, but Loki ignores him—perching on the fresh pile of obsidian while tugging out more jagged rocks that scatter and shatter on the ground. Soon enough he finds what he’s looking for, pulling it from deep within the alcove with some struggle.

Thor cannot believe it.

“I hid it here as soon as Hela escaped,” Loki says, smugness creeping up his expression. “The last place she’d think to look.”

“ _Gungnir_ ,” Thor whispers the word as though it’s a curse. He closes his eyes and sees only his father’s disappointment.

“It won’t sing to me the same after all I have done with it,” Loki continues, rueful. “But it _will_ know Odin’s power.”

Loki whispers and the gold metal starts glowing; he listens to the spear’s tellings, eyes drifting closed as his fingers brandish the ornate head. “He roams Midgard still, as though a babbling fool.”

Once the protective glamour is unlocked, Thor can hear Gungnir’s screams of intense longing and protest. How Loki managed to do _anything_ with it in such an aggrieved state is nothing short of spectacular. Thor grows weary of hearing the agony, longs to have Mjolnir’s heft back in his palm.

Before he can offer question or dismay to Loki, it becomes clear that the spear has already revealed them.

A wayward Hel-Hound, vicious, howls in the distance.

“Quickly,” Loki glamours it again, keeling over with pain; then clambers up to the hole and crawls into the confined space, cursing as he does so. Thor follows and soon finds good reason to curse—razor-sharp obsidian glides through exposed, weakened flesh repeatedly as they drag further into the darkness.

Pitchest black envelops now; Thor can only follow blind as Loki mutters maledictions to himself. Loki grinds to a halt, catching breath.

“Are we lost?” Thor asks.

“ _No_ ,” the reply comes with stubborn hiss. “Just shut up and give me a moment.”

Thor does. Loki’s exhaustion is clammy-thick in the mineral prison. Still, after a moment, onwards they go.

In such circumstances the journey feels like endless distance, but Thor remains resolute: everything has an end eventually. Loki takes a sharp left, wriggles himself around so that he falls down jagged slope, landing feet-first and graceful into a sizeable cavity within the lithophysa—although Gungnir is held upside down. Thor falls face-first, smacking his head on a particularly sharp slice of crystal.

“You could have warned me,” he bellows into blackness, voice echoing in the chamber.

Silent sniggering, “Ah, but where’s the fun in that?” Even blinded, Thor knows Loki is grinning wicked with glee. “And despite how much you enjoy it, please do refrain from such brutish roaring. Rogue Hel-Hounds wouldn’t dare tread this path, but we still must show caution.”

Thor grunts, lowers his tone, though shows no less disdain. “I am bleeding,” he growls, bringing bloodied fingers to bloodied head.

“As am I,” Loki retorts. “Do you require some sort of special commendation for your endeavour?”

Thor huffs, affronted. “No.”

“Then shut up.”

“Stop telling me to shut up! We are not _children_.”

“Hm. Perhaps some of us are.” When Thor offers no reply, Loki sighs heavily. “Fine. Let me see.”

Pressing his palms flat out, Loki mutters runes into the surrounding mineral. The chasm becomes dimly lit with a kaleidoscope of colour—all tinged with green, revealing the surroundings to be made up of entirely crystal, light dancing about in a gentle shimmer. Small, but not cramped. Staggering in its beauty.

Thor gasps, then tenses up as Loki’s hands examine his head—delicate, graceful as they wipe blood from Thor’s brow.

“You’ll live.”

Thor feels a stab of guilt when Loki turns away. Pale flesh, marred, and armour scissored to ribbons by their recent and various plights. More dried blood than clothing, than visible skin. “And how fare you?”

They are both healing fast, but not fast enough. Once stronger, Loki will conjure the energy needed to get them to Midgard through Gungnir. For now—and finally giving up his front, Loki leans against a more accommodating piece of rock, gripping the spear with clenched fist.

“In truth? I _have_ been better.”

“Then you must rest while we remain well-hidden.”

“We cannot afford to rest.”

“Please Loki,” exasperated, Thor grabs the nape of his brother’s neck, eyes wide and pleading. “You must recover.”

“I am quite fine. We will wait in here a short while and then be on our merry—”

“You are going nowhere until you have slept,” Thor commands. “Please. I will keep guard.”

“There is nothing to threaten us in here,” Loki replies. Not knowing how to deal with his brother’s consideration, he strings disjointed sentences together. “We are protected from the outside. Hel-Hounds hate the caves. Hela would never dare stoop to crawl these crevices. Besides, the realm is abandoned.” His lips remain a firm line on his face. “But anyway, I am fine.”

Loki Odinson, ever the contrarian. Thor wonders then if anyone or anything else has ever even _seen_ this labyrinth of rock. He wonders how Loki has come to know it like the back of his hand, but then he supposes that’s a tale for another day.

Loki remains petulant. He ignores Thor and continues to clutch Gungnir, glaring at the adjacent crystal formation. “I need only a few moments to gather my thoughts. That’s all.”

“If you will not rest, then you will explain things to me.”

Loki offers sneer in response, then exasperation. “ _Norns forsaken_ , can you not just give me one moment’s peace?”

A moment passes. “You would have had me kill you with my bare hands,” Thor says, voice thick with accusation, “had you no magicked blade.”

If he hadn’t used the blade, Loki would be in Helheim alone.

“I knew you would not do it.”

“You would trust me so well, brother?” Thor turns his head. “Even in my berserker rage?”

Loki smiles bitter at this. “ _After_ the red mist, there is always sense enough.”

“Was it worth the risk?”

“I had to be sure.”

Thor cannot argue. It was true. Loki had betrayed his brother so much. Even Thor had limits. And had threatened to kill him, more than once.

“Are you sure now?”

“Of course I am,” Loki offers his reply with a small smirk. “You’d be dead otherwise.” He bites his lip, tentative and strangely vulnerable all of a sudden. “Are _you_ sure?”

Thor smiles now, wicked and gleeful. “No,” he replies, suddenly straight-faced. “I actually have a meticulous plan of my own, to strangle you in your sleep.” Loki laughs—a genuine, hearty laugh—low, exhausted and rumbling in response. Thor thinks it’s the sweetest sound he’s heard in an age. “ _That’s_ why I’m so keen for you to rest.”

Still sniggering, Loki closes his eyes. Thor watches him sleep for a long while, until he can take it no more. He lies beside him.

Brushes hair from his face. “My brother,” he whispers. Loki’s eyelids flutter, but do not open as he moans softly under Thor’s touch. “How I’ve missed you.” He presses his lips gently to bloodied forehead, eyelids and finally— soft, slackened mouth before pulling away. Thor’s eyes struggle to stay open then, though he swears he sees a hint of a smile play about Loki’s slack lips.

***

Thor awakes to find Loki atop his chest, kissing him with all the urgency of a starved creature.

“I dreamed of us,” Loki gasps, panting with his own ferocity. “It was—ah!—” he digs nails into Thor’s chest and gives up trying to talk.

Thor kisses earnestly in response, head thudding with the blood rushing around between his ears. It’s not the only place.

They’ve both healed considerably now, although they still have a way to go. The dried blood over them, mingled with sweat, shows that even gods take more than a few hours to recover when brought to half-death.

Frantic, Loki removes what remains of Thor’s pitiful armour, but doesn’t give Thor any such opportunity to return the favour: he’s got Thor’s cock out and his mouth around it lightening-fast, urgent and greedy with his motions. Thor’s head thuds back against sharp rock, and he doesn’t care about anything save for the hot, wet feel of his brother’s mouth, humming and sucking in earnest.

Suddenly, Thor is consumed with visceral memory. He remembers what he had sworn to forget, _craves_ the taste of it from time long gone—the feel, the smell, the delectable musk of Loki’s flesh. Pulling Loki upwards, Thor observes the swollen lips and the twinge of confusion on Loki’s brow.

“Is it not what you desire?”

Thor would laugh at this were it not for the vulnerability evident in his brother’s voice.

“Loki,” he places firm hands against sharp cheekbones. “It is what I _need_.”

He moans at the taste of himself on Loki’s tongue. They kiss, slow and intimate, and Thor works his way down Loki’s body to find further prize. He devours it as Loki scrabbles at the surroundings.

“Open me up, make a wretch of me, brother,” Loki goads, unable to tolerate it any longer. And as if Thor _needed_ any goading. He turns Loki around and spreads pale cheeks to expose pinker skin, probing his tongue where before it had never dared imagine.

Knees buckling, Loki mewls with pleasure, groaning and cursing when Thor adds a finger, a second, a third; scissoring and slurping with unsightly finesse. By the time Thor adds a fourth finger, Loki is all but fucking his entire hand.

When he tries to replace fingers with cock, despite the preparation, Loki is still so tight and impenetrable. Vexed, Loki turns around and grabs for Thor’s cock, laving it with saliva until it’s dripping and Thor’s breaths are shallow grunts.

Loki lies on his back this time, spreading his legs wide. Thor hooks them over shoulder and presses in. This second attempt is much easier. As he breeches the tight ring of muscle, Thor presses soothing kisses to Loki’s moaning mouth.

Only once he’s buried to the hilt does he exhale in pleasure, cursing into Loki’s mouth now. They each try to claim air from the other, struggling in such short supply themselves.

They’d done something like this before, only more gentle and innocent, and in too many centuries past. It does now as it did then: consumes them both.

They have been brought to orgasm three times each before Thor is finally sated, pressing a kiss to his brother’s sweat-slicken forehead.

In the silence that follows, Thor finds himself the first to speak, voice gentle as Loki’s head rests on his chest.

“I had almost forgotten how exquisite you taste,” he says, with a tinge of regret.

“My mouth, or my cock?”

“Everything. All of you.”

“Even my backside?”

“Now I know its taste, _especially_ your backside.”

“Pervert.” Loki notes, sly-smiled and just a little abashed. “I must try yours soon, then.”

“If you so wish.”

The thought is delicious, and enough to rouse further interest in Thor. Loki bats his hand away.

“A tempting offer, perhaps,” he sits up, black hair spilling across pale shoulders as he offers a wry smile. “But enough of this post-coital basking,” he pinches one of Thor’s rosy nipples, eliciting a wanton moan. “There is much work to be done.”

“I hate that,” Thor laments, wishing for a different way.

Loki pulls him upright for a deep kiss, sighing gently. “As do I, brother.”

“Are you yet strong enough to get us to Midgard?”

“Do you think your cock a magical balm?” Loki laughs, scathing, “That you fucked me to my former strength so effortlessly, brother?”

Thor blushes, but hides it with a frown. “That is not what I meant.” He smirks, then. “Besides, you jumped me, as I recall.”

Mistake. Big mistake. Loki huffs, clothes himself and paces around the cavern in silence, while Thor remains naked and coy.

“If you cannot take it, then do not give it, my brother,” Thor adds, finally pulling his torn armour back on.

“Hmph.” Loki mutters under his breath, “You shall be saying that to _yourself_ soon enough, when I impale you with _my_ cock.”

“If you so wish,” Thor replies with a wide grin. “Now answer me.”

Loki stills under Thor’s gaze, ever mercurial. “No. I am nowhere near strong enough.” He sighs heavily. “Though I must confess your _restorative powers_ did rejuvenate me somewhat.”

Thor’s grin widens to full beam.

Loki rolls his eyes and begins his lengthy task of collecting various rock samples from the alcoves. Down and down they crawl to lower caverns, hands and knees bleeding with it.

“For spells,” he explains, standing upright and examining a particularly beautiful glowing red gem to the air, while Thor looms behind him—huffing, having followed into yet another cavern. “I’d forgotten what a treasure trove this place is.”

“How many times have you _been_ in here?”

A casual veneer. “Oh, not that many.”

“Once? Twice? A hundred times?” Thor asks, almost aghast, and Loki smirks.

“You _do_ remember who got us into Svartelheim, don’t you?”

They hear a faint noise then. A low rumble that sounds like it could be both trickle and echo, liquid and rapid.

“Water?” Thor says as Loki’s skin prickles and pales.

“She’s flooding us out.” He tenses his arm and stretches his fingers, but Gungnir—left in another cavern— will not answer his call. “Quickly,” he turns to Thor. “You must try to call to it. We will never make it back in time.” The water echoes louder, drips down onto crystal.

“’Tis magic I do not understand.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Loki says, frantic and scathing, pacing about the hollow for the last few runes needed. “Mjolnir’s yours, isn’t she?”

“Not any more,” Thor growls with anger. “And hers is the only magic I’d ever known.”

“Now is _not_ the time for brotherly sulking,” Loki thrusts the remaining rocks into his makeshift pouch, “so you would at least try, lest you want us to drown.”

They hold hands, Thor closes his eyes and the air prickles with magic for a moment, but it is torn asunder as a stream of liquid blasts upwards through a piece of crystal.

“ _Damn_.”

Instead, they clamber upwards into chamber after chamber, retracing steps and grappling the now-slippery rocks.

The caverns fill up quickly, and once they make it back the original is chest-deep with fast-flowing water. They both dive around frantically searching for the spear in the crashing white rapids, and it’s Loki who finds it in the end, grabbing it with bleeding knuckles.

Thor pulls him upward into the next crawlway, water rushing downwards against them.

In the haste to escape, Gungnir becomes wedged between a rock.

“It won’t fit through the bend,” Loki gasps through breaths as the water rises.

They both grapple angrily at it, to no avail.

“Then we will leave her,” Thor shouts, struggling to be heard over the sound of the crashing waves. “Come on, Loki.”

“No!” Loki shouts back, “Odin will not remember without it,” he yanks at the thing in desperation now, and it loosens from the rock and his grip; the rushing current whisking it away. Loki dives under after it, but Thor catches him half-way, and they spiral into the deeper waters. “Let me go!”

“You are mad,” Thor pulls him further away. “Show us _out_ of here, Loki.”

“No, _you_ are mad,” Loki retorts. “We are already dead without Gungnir. You _must_ call it and move us.”

“How?” Thor asks, desperate.

“Think of Mjolnir,” Loki growls, spitting water out from his mouth. Huge pieces of crystal fall down, and one hits Loki on the head; he slinks under the water in a pool of blood.

Thor pulls him up, “Loki. Loki!” But his brother is out cold.

Water now reaching his jaw, Thor holds breath and searches frantically for the spear, which in its weight has sunk to the bottom. He can’t see anything for red.

It is hopeless. But then, he has been without hope before.

Thor thinks of Mjolnir. He thinks of his training. His brother.

He prays to the Norns. They laugh in his face, of course. Then they chant, scream and whisper _ragnarok_ to him:

_Rag-na-rok! Son-of-Odins in a pickle!_

_Ragnaragnaragnarock—_

Defiant, Thor screams back, voice muted by liquid filling his lungs. He grips tight onto Gungnir with one hand, Loki pressed close to his heart with the other. He fights.

 _Not like this,_ he thinks, tears lost to the water drowning him. He closes his eyes, lets out one final guttural cry and allows the Norns and magic and love and hate and everything between to consume him.

When Thor opens his eyes, he finds himself in the middle of an ocean.

He is still drowning, and one thing is slipping away from his grip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and feedback always always always welcome, on here or through my [Tumblr](https://ikoliholic.tumblr.com/). And seriously, thanks for reading. You just made my day!


	4. Midgard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features brotherly!bickering, InterContinental Aesir Travel Fails, and The Loki Angst™

The waves crash wild and disorienting, roaring into Thor’s ears as he scrambles with the tide. Calculating their trajectory, and the particularly vicious lashings of sea salt, he suspects they’ve ended up somewhere in the wild clutches of the Tasmin Sea.

As the spear sinks, Thor doesn’t regret instinct. Fearing Loki already has too much water in his lungs, he cannot risk more damage to his unconscious brother. He must get them to shore—and quickly at that.

But as another wave envelops them, Thor realises he can’t even _see_ a shore.

Still, he is a god. And he’s somehow gotten them this far.

*

“ _You lost it?_ ” After sitting upright and spluttering, Loki’s first words post-resuscitation make the salt transferred from his lips to Thor’s sting all the more.

“It was either it,” he bites back, “or _you_.” _Ungrateful fool_.

“Well,” Loki splutters once more as he wipes away spit. “Wrong choice, idiot. Odin is but a babbling fool without its magic.”

“And _why_ is that?” Thor says, voice thick with accusation. Tired of his brother’s critical tone, he grabs Loki’s shoulders and shakes. “What have you done to render him so?”

Loki’s eyes, bloodshot with sea salt and stress, widen. Then they narrow. “He did it to himself.”

“Why would I trust your words, brother?” Thor’s accuses through gritted teeth. “I remember how scornful you were towards father—”

“He’s _not_ my—” Loki begins, then remembers the last time he’d shouted that aloud and his voice softens. “What cause have I to lie?”

“If I knew _that_ , I would rest much easier at night.”

Ignoring Thor, Loki runs toward the water with a limp, only to have his brother pull him back, both of them toppling over and fighting in the process.

“Have you truly lost your mind?” Thor manages between spitting out gulps of spray and water, only to have Loki drag him back under again.

“We—must—ggrrhlp!”

Finally, Thor manages to get the upper hand.

*

A long while later, Loki sits beside him, shiver-shaking and sulking as the sun begins to set in the pink-purple sky. They are both physically and mentally exhausted.

“Why do you always win,” he asks, downcast tone of voice telling Thor the question’s rhetorical. “Every single time, whether right or wrong. It’s _always_ you, Thor. And I always lose.”

Thor laughs, mirthless, as he looks Loki in the eye. “Twice I have watched you die, and twice I have watched you almost die, and you sit here telling me I always win?” His expression falls serious, pained. “Brother, it is no sport. What will it take for you to see clearly?”

He presses his lips to Loki’s forehead. Loki leans into the affection for a brief moment, then pulls away: now it is his turn to be mirthless. “I _am_ clear. You on the other hand, are controlled ever and always by heart, not head. There’s not a grain of sense within you.”

“And you are a hypocrite,” Thor fires back, casual, though his fingers clench a little tighter about Loki’s neck. “God of Chaos.”

Loki blinks. “They will come for us,” he says after a while, avoiding Thor’s ardent gaze. “Not even I can cast illusions so well as to deceive their great powers. _Certainly_ not without the spear.”

“Let them come,” Thor says. He thinks of a shattered Mjolnir; a shattered soul. “I have endured worse, of that I am certain.”

“You underestimate the power of evil,” Loki murmurs, thinking of Thanos.

He assesses Thor with narrowed eyes. “And look at the _state_ of you. You need to rest.”

Thor gruffs. “Says you,” though he can’t really disagree.

“You first, me later. It’s not safe here if we both sleep.”

*

When Thor awakes, Loki is dripping wet beside him. Gungnir lays on the sandy ground, shimmering under a sky full of stars.

“Child’s play,” he declares, smug, but Thor can see his ribcage heaving a little harder than usual.

“For how long did I sleep?”

“Five days.” Loki deadpans, then rolls his eyes at Thor’s aghast face. “Barely three hours, you fool. Norns, you’re too _easy_ these days.” He gives a brief smile. “Go on, rest.”

“Your turn,” Thor says, grabbing hold of Gungnir. “You look more like shit than I.”

Loki quirks an eyebrow. “Deary me. You’ve been hanging around illiterate humans for _far_ too long.” Still, he curls up in a ball and falls asleep within moments, half-smiling to himself.

*

One benefit of almost drowning in the middle of an ocean was that the brothers were now much less blood-stained in appearance, and the salt water had helped along the healing process quite well. Nevertheless, journeying across Midgard is more gruelling than they are accustomed to—without the aid of Mjolnir or proper seidr.

 _“They will detect any surges of magic I use,”_ Loki had warned. _“Astral projection is out of the question.”_ He uses very small bits and pieces, of course —a falsified passport here and stolen wallet there— but for the most part, they do things the more traditional way. It involves a lot of headaches, missed connections and heated discussions with personnel. Loki taking the lead, naturally.

“What do you _mean_ , three trains?”

“What do you _mean_ , wrong airport?”

“What do you _mean_ , you don’t accept Euros?”

“What do you _mean_ , three thousand dollars?”

“What do you _mean_ , strip search?”

It’s getting quite exhausting, Thor thinks, as he drums his fingers on the latest nondescript help desk.

“What do you _mean_ , excess baggage fee?” Loki hisses across to a nonchalant-looking employee. “You should be imprisoned for these prices.”

As the employee shrugs and calls security for assistance, Thor sighs once more. After nine days, he can’t help but feel there’s an easier way.

“What do you _mean_ , you have no more vodka?” Loki hisses to a perturbed air stewardess this time. “I have nowhere for my legs to go in this cramped excuse of a seat, with this foul-smelling obese mortal sat beside me, and you dare tell me I cannot—”

“Pay him no mind, fair folk,” Thor smiles brightly from beneath his Fishermans hat and sunglasses. Thankfully, the other passenger is fast asleep and oblivious. He turns to the stewardess. “Do you have those little bags of peanuts everyone so raves about?”

“Of course,” she offers an anxious smile in reply. “I’ll just go fetch you some, Sir.”

Loki lowers his hood, turns and scowls at him. “She had better fetch me a beverage too.”

“Watch your unkind tone,” Thor throws the hood back over Loki’s head. “We are supposed to be incognito.”

“Says you, wearing this _get-up_?” Loki gestures to the pink-rimmed star-shaped shades adorning Thor’s face. “Spare me.”

“What? I like them.”

“You are an idiot.”

*

And on it goes.

“Ugh. I _hate_ lugging all of this around.” Loki scowls for dramatic effect while swinging the heavy suitcase with a limp wrist. He drops down to the generic, underwhelmingly-sized bed.

They are checked in to an airport hotel, due to another ‘altercation’ which resulted in _another_ missed connection.

Thor tilts his head, drops his own baggage and sighs, ever-suffering. “I believe that’s why they call it _luggage_. And can you please stop complaining? We have journeyed across barren, frozen wasteland and perilous desert in times past. At least we have a bed here.”

“Mm,” Loki mumbles into the over-starched sheets, face down, saying not a syllable more. Days have passed since they’d been intimate on Helheim, and much has happened since to cause easy distraction. Thor has tried to bring it up casually—at any such point Loki has weaved the conversation to unrelated territory.

Not this time though, Thor won’t have it. “Will we share the bed together?”

Loki lifts his head up to show Thor a scathing look, “Where else would we sleep?”

“I meant,” Thor swallows. Suddenly his tongue feels thick in his mouth. “I mean, will we—”

“Yes, _I know what you mean_ ,” Loki spits it out as he sits upright. “Unrefined fool that you are.”

Thor’s face tinges pink at this, but he does not relent. “I do not understand why it embarrasses you so.” Loki will not tell him outright that it’s just in his nature to woefully rue showing any vulnerability no matter who the recipient or what the situation may be, but Thor senses it just as much through the silence. “Why do you regret it?”

Loki’s eyes narrow. “What I _regret_ is carrying around all this rubbish in order to maintain a disguise. You overestimate how much the mortals revere you.” Thor tries to interrupt but gets nowhere. “You think yourself so _mighty_ , but I’d wager they’d barely recognise you even if you walked around in full regalia.”

“And you, on the other hand?” Thor fumes, taking the bait.

“Of course they wouldn’t recognise me,” Loki mumbles. “Don’t they think me dead?”

Thor glowers. “Fine. We shall lose the luggage and go overt if it so bothers you.”

“Fine. I’m going to bathe.”

“There are no baths, just a shower.”

“Fine.”

“ _Fine_.”

It’s only when he hears water hitting tiles that Thor realises he’s been duped. He storms into the bathroom—

“—If you think for one second you are sharing this shower with—” but Thor rips the limp white curtain off its rail and pushes Loki against the wall.

“You would tell me everything that weighs heavy on your mind.”

“You’re fully _clothed_ you absolute—” Loki tries again, but Thor shuts him up this time with a kiss; not as brutal as the situation could allow. Uncertain, pleading.

Thor pulls away after just a second, and Loki’s crystal green eyes offer a rare glimpse of vulnerability at the centre of chaos. Without saying a single word, Loki pulls his brother back towards him, peeling away Thor’s shirt and devouring mouth with hungry mouth.

*

“You want to _have_ it?” Loki asks, trying to veil disbelief. He’d offered his cock jokingly, back in Helheim’s caves, but Thor had clearly taken his word as truth.

Besides, they’ve just spent in the shower. _Twice each_.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Thor says, unabashed. His naked, damp and languid body is sprawled across the bed, arse presented in a most agreeable curve. Loki notes the markings of his own fingernails dug across the golden canvas— little pink welts of delight. His brother looks glorious.

Loki is terrified.

Thor can sense it in the very air. “If it makes you cry such exquisite pleasure, I should like to try it for myself,” he reasons, turning on his side and revealing his thick length, already hardened once more against his belly. “If you are still willing, that is.”

“You might not like it.” Loki says. _I might not satisfy you_.

“Loki. As many nights as I have dreamt of having my cock in you, I have dreamt of having you bend me over.”

Loki’s cheeks burst to crimson at his brother’s brazen words. “I…”

“Why so coy?” Thor asks, “When so silver-tongued you are.”

Loki would rather pull his own teeth out than tell Thor the truth.

“Because I did not imagine my brother a wanton whore,” he derides. Still, he ruffles damp black hair with his towel, discards, then joins Thor on the bed. “But if you so wish,” he continues, spreading Thor’s cheeks apart, “I shall oblige.”

Thor groans as Loki’s tongue hits its mark—the blunt tip of a finger following shortly after.

“Perhaps we should return to the water to ease the adjustment,” Loki suggests, while pressing a second digit inside. “My cock is, after all, much thicker than this.”

“Perhaps I have plenty of experience taking cock,” Thor jokes.

Loki does not laugh and immediately Thor regrets his words. Especially when Loki grabs the nearest object —a plugged-in telephone—and throws it at the opposite wall.

“ _Loki, what is this madn—”_

“A convenient courtesan at your disposal, am I?” The reply is beseeching. “Naught but a—”

“Loki, it was—”

“No!” Loki shouts, hands balling into fists. “No, Thor. I will not be that. Your whore. I don’t care.” His eyes well with tears, “I don’t _care_.”

Loki is all but hysterical now; Thor grabs his wrists in a bid to calm him. “Please, brother.” Thor holds him close. “You have no need for jealousy — it was a jest.”

“You and I,” Loki starts, looking _so_ sad with tears rolling down his face, “we could never be truly equal, ever. You are a fool to think otherwise.”

“Shh,” Thor tries to soothe. “Just let it all out.”

*

_“Where is it?” Hela storms into the room, none of her usual composure present._

_“What?” Loki asks innocently, but he knows already what she’s referring to._

_The spear._

_“Would you have me involve Thanos in this?” She says, cooly, lips a tight thin line as she approaches him. Suddenly Loki feels the air being extracted from his lungs. “Or are you going to be a good boy and tell me, before I obliterate you from the Realms?”_

_Half-strangled, Loki nods. His reward is him being dropped to the floor._

_“Speak now,” she commands, “and I shall show you mercy.”_

_“Jotunheim,” he gasps, lying of course. Though at least there, they stand a half a chance of surviving Hela’s wrath. “In the largest, desolate ice-river.”_

_“Traitor.” She summons a blast of seidr which sends Loki skittering across the marbled floor. “You will pay with blood.”_

_Her sardonic face is the last thing Loki sees before he loses consciousness._

_Next face he sees is Thor’s._

*

When Loki eventually speaks again, it’s a timid voice that somehow rattles Thor’s bones. He will not tell Thor everything— that much Thor knows— but he has to start somewhere.

“The Grandmaster said once you had me on the knife’s edge of death, he would have me brought back to life by Hela, and fucked a thousand times over by someone with your likeness.” A sad smile creeps upon his pale face. “I honestly don’t know if that was supposed punishment or brutal quip.”

Thor is aghast. He snarls as he thinks of the Grandmaster’s cruel tone. “How did they find out your betrayal?”

“Hela found out I’d hidden Gungnir. That’s why I ended up in the Arena in the first place.”

Thor shifts. “What?”

“You saw what she did to the hammer. Can you imagine the power if she wielded the spear?”

Thor pales at the thought. His heart aches to trust that his brother is telling the truth. “Is this the only reason you ended up on that wretched planet?”

“Aye.” Loki sits up. “And you were never supposed to show up to Asgard. I’d told them you were busy on Midgard. _Sowing your oats_.” He spits out the last words as jealous venom.

“That is not—”

“Tell me, Thor. Am I the only soul you have heart for?”

“I have had heart for others, yes,” Thor admits, “but never as much than for you.”

“They assumed you would kill me,” Loki sneers, ignoring his brother’s sincerity and changing the subject. “Truthfully? I wanted nothing more.”

Thor’s heart clenches at the words. He knew Loki had been sick in the mind—his actions after all, spoke such truth, but he did not know the extent of it.

Before he can respond, Loki looks him dead in the eye. “But I could not let you rot in that arena while Asgard burns.” His face streaks with tears.

“Tomorrow is a new day.” Thor is stoic and soothing while he still clutches Loki tight to his chest. “We will make it to father, and all will be well.”

For a splinter of a moment, Loki actually believes it.

*

As Thor watches his brother sleep soundly, he finally allows his own tears to fall. The guilt overwhelms him, thinking back over the blood he shed during his captivity. The endless, senseless, repetitive waste.

How much he came to enjoy it.

How it still burns hot in his veins, knowing that he pierced his brother’s heart with a dagger and brought him back to life with blood spilled from his own heart. It was so base and yet so sacred, somehow sanctifying. And the deepest, most shameful part of all? Thor craved to feel it once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, any comments you leave will be greatly appreciated. Also, I do [Tumblr](https://ikoliholic.tumblr.com/) very badly from time to time. Come say hey!


	5. The End is Nigh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end is nigh...or is it? (it is.)
> 
> Hope you enjoy! x

When they finally reach America, battle has already begun. Thor’s friends are nowhere to be found — Loki is a bit smug with that. Less smug when he becomes ensnared in magical net, hung upside down by The Sorcerer Supreme.

After a quick ‘meeting’ with Steven Strange, who explains the current situation on Midgard and promises to help the brothers find Odin, Thor feels uneasy that Loki could be captured so.

“Are you well enough to be doing this?” He asks, only to have lashings of insult fired his way. Thor realises then that Loki is not only weakened and off guard— he’s nervous.

“Do you fear Odin?”

Loki considers the question, and mumbles his reply out of Strange’s earshot. “I fear he may not be able to help us as we think.”

As it turns out, Loki’s fears were correct.

“You’re telling _me_ he’s the Allfather?” Strange says, perplexed.

There is no mistaking it. Thor’s heart sinks at the sight.

“Give us a moment, please.”

Odin sits on the dirty street’s floor, as unkempt as a pauper living years in isolation and despondence. His face is layered thick with grime, blue eyes piercing wild through the mess of his appearance— not a hint of God or King in sight.

“Father,” Thor manages, choking on tears waiting to fall. Even Loki can barely manage to look.

“The End is coming!” Odin starts, croaks and coughs, holding up his scribbled-on-cardboard-message to that effect, before toppling over once more.

“Father.” Thor bends down, leaning on the weight of the umbrella-disguised Gungnir and gently tries to help Odin sit upright. “Father, it’s me. Thor.” Odin looks at him vacantly. “You do not remember me?”

“The End…is coming… for us all.”

Loki rolls his eyes and bends down, “Give me that,” he snatches the umbrella from Thor and it immediately shifts into the spear. “Odin of Asgard, I am Loki of Nowhere. Remember this?” He throws it down at his once-father. “It’s yours.” The spear catches the side of Odin’s face, drawing blood.

“Liar! Evil!” Odin screeches and points at Loki. “Evil liar!”

Loki’s face turns into a snarl, and as he bends down Odin strikes him across the face with Gungnir. “I should have killed you while I had the chance,” he grapples and fights the old man — Thor pulls him away while Strange looks on blankly at the now three-way scuffle.

“Daddy issues. Fun.”

It ends when a blast of magic shoots from Gungnir, obliterating an already-destroyed rubble of bricks. Odin startles, then refuses to let the spear away from his grip. “It’s mine!” He barks when Loki tries to snatch it back.

“So am I still a liar, then?”

“Hmndgh,” Odin responds, narrowing his eyes and holding onto Gungnir tighter still. “Loki. Liar Loki!”

“Give that here, you old fool…”

“Can you take him in?” Thor asks Strange as the pair continue to squabble. “I swear this is the Allfather.”

“I believe you,” Steven says. “But what the hell happened to him?”

A fair question, and one which Thor wishes he knew the answer to himself. He looks on at Loki and sighs. “I do not know, but I will find out.”

“I can’t even feel a _thread_ of magic from him. Or um, sanity.” Thor shoots him an affronted look. “Sorry.”

“For Odin, I fear this is a fate worse than…” Thor looks so sad. “Please ensure no harm comes to him.”

“That I will,” Strange gives an uneasy smile and pause. “Although he looks like he can handle himself pretty well,” he says, gesturing to the ensuing altercation. “And the spear?”

“Odin wielding Gungnir will be vital in the battle to come, so Loki says. We will leave it with him to see if he remembers anything. Please give word if he snaps back into reality.”

“And where will you go next?”

“That,” Thor sighs heavily, “I do not yet know.”

“Do you really trust your brother?” They look over at Loki, who currently has a resolute Odin in a headlock. “I mean, after everything he’s done—”

“Much has happened since that battle,” Thor interjects. “And there is much more to come.”

He realises later that he never actually answered Strange’s question.

***

“We must return to Asgard,” Thor says. Seeing Odin in such a state has confirmed it to him: it is the only choice.

Loki bursts out laughing. “I did not know your death wish was so strong, brother.”

“What _choice_ do we have?” Thor simmers back. “Didn’t think so,” he harps at Loki’s silence.

“ _Well,_ ” Loki bites after a while, condescending, “if you were so keen on travelling the Realms once more, perhaps you shouldn’t have left Gungnir with Odin.”

“You said that—”

“I _know_ what I said.”

Loki seems incredibly tense — and it does nothing for Thor’s fear. “You knew Father would be in such a state.”

After a while, Loki concedes. “I had a suspicion, yes.”

“ _Why_?”

“Does it matter?” Loki fires the question back, avoiding eye contact and picking at his own fingernails.

“There are things you are not telling me.” He punches the wall, a crack splintering its way from floor to ceiling.

“Idiot.” Loki sighs, finally looks into Thor’s deep blue eyes. “I have _never_ been more honest with you, Thor. What more do you want from me? The clothes from my back? Shall I rip out my heart and serve it you on a platter?”

Thor thinks of how it would feel to pierce Loki with his own dagger once more; the red flushing up his face as he swallows down such vile thoughts.

Too late — Loki catches sight of it. “ _Oh_.” He stalks toward him. The way he carries himself now, Thor can see less exasperation and more confidence exuding.

He brandishes a blade, Thor presumes it’s the dagger he’d used to strike Loki in the chest, but then—ah— it shimmers gold-green instead, and Thor wonders if it’s magicked with something else. He stops thinking altogether then…

Gently and without hesitation, Loki slices just ever so slightly down the concave of his own chest and belly—the gold-green gliding seamlessly across pale skin, revealing a hint of crimson liquid beneath.

Thor gasps. “ _Loki_.”

Loki simply laughs, proffering the dagger to him. “Please brother,” he grins wickedly with fake-distress. “Fuck me, why don’t you.”

Thor snatches the blade and throws it to the floor, “You are beyond wretched.” His rage boils around his body. Nevertheless, he claims the offering. Pushes Loki down to the dirty motel floor. Thinks of bones crushed and flesh marred; every single victim imprinted on his mind forever.

Most of all though, he thinks of Loki splayed beneath him; the ultimate warrior’s prize.

“ _Harder_ ,” Loki growls through gritted teeth, met with the back of Thor’s hand across his face as reply. Still, it will take more than that to silence the silvertongue they both know. “Fucking harder! Like I’m your last ever battle, like I’m worth more than—”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Thor himself growls then, wiping dampened black hair away from Loki’s face while covering his wicked mouth. “Any harder, I would split you in two.”

“Double the fun.” Loki murmurs behind the palm of Thor’s hand, eyes illuminated and boots digging tight across sweat-soaked back, urging him on as ever. Thor moans at the tightness of his brother’s heat, wonders if anything could ever return to a semblance of normal again, after this.

Right now, it doesn’t seem likely.

The orgasm crests in Thor’s chest, and when he comes, Loki strikes the blade right into his hammering heart. Doesn’t let go.

Valhalla.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I had _lots_ of places where I wanted this fic to go - mostly where it decided *not* to go, actually. Blah. Anyway, who knows, one day I might do a sequel to make it all better.
> 
> Thanks to all who have read and enjoyed - as always you can find me on Tumblr, or comment here if you'd like :)


End file.
